Members of the Mackinac Tribe of Odawa and Ojibwa Indians plan to confront a treaty rights issue by setting commercial fishing nets in Lake Michigan off Boulevard Drive near St. Ignace Thursday, May 7, and retrieve them the following day at noon. The move is an attempt by the tribe to gain state and federal recognition as a "signatory tribe" to the federally recognized Treaty of Washington signed in 1836, in which five Michigan tribes reserve certain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights.

Fishermen recently licensed by the Mackinac Tribe will set nets off the Green Island boat launch in Moran Township.

The action follows the filing of a petition to Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Governor Jennifer Granholm notifying them of the Mackinac Tribe's rights under the Treaty of 1836.

Tribal attorney Robert Vickrey, in that petition, stated it is the position of the Mackinac Tribe that they are federally recognized and have never ceased to exist, according to a printed statement submitted to The St. Ignace News Monday, May 4.

"As a 'Signatory Tribe' of the 1836 and 1855 treaty and under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution," he wrote, "the Mackinac Tribe is hopeful that the Department of Interior and the State of Michigan will recognize their position as a legal right to commercial fish."

Mr. Vickrey, of Clinton Township, also argued the tribal members' "legal right to assert their independence, at any time, and establish their own autonomous government separate and distinct from that of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe" of Chippewa Indians.

Mackinac Tribe member Barry Adams said his group applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for commercial fishing licenses Tuesday, April 28, but the request was denied because the federal government does not recognize the tribe.

Consequently, according to the tribal statement, the tribe issued its own commercial fishing licenses to a group of Mackinac Tribe commercial fishermen, who plan to set nets Thursday.

Lieutenant John Cischke of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in Newberry said such an act would be illegal.

"If they go there and they set the nets, we'll pull the nets out and arrest them," he said.

Gerald Parish, superintendent of the BIA office in Sault Ste. Marie, said he denied the group's license request because he doesn't have the authority to grant permits to non-federally recognized tribes, however, did offer to assist the tribe in the appeals process. He noted that his office has no other involvement in the matter at this point.

Darryl Brown of the Mackinac Tribe said the offer of appeals assistance from the BIA opens the door for dialogue and to gain recognition from the U.S.

"They now want to sit down with us to talk," he said Tuesday, May 5. "It's a positive development."

Thursday's net setting will go on as planned, however, tribal members said.

Tribes recognized in the 1836 settlement are the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in the Upper Peninsula, and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in the Lower Peninsula.